Biology Gifted Students’ Perception towards Learning Strategies, Learning Preferences, and Information Stabilization

Abstract

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms. Biology makes a big contribution to our understanding of nature. Science, especially biology, has been reported to be one of the main interest areas for many gifted and talented students. Considering the increased interest and attention in the gifted and talented students, a discussion group was held with 25 Biology Gifted Students (BGS) with the aim of examining Perception towards learning strategies, learning styles, and information stabilities. The students pointed out 10 different learning strategies, which varied in importance. The top three strategies were the experiential learning strategy, open discussion strategy and thirdly self-learning strategy. Whereas flipped learning strategy, role-playing strategy, and brainstorming strategy ranked the least important respectively. The BGS’s answers regarding learning styles varied but they asserted the importance of group learning style, competitive learning style and one-to-one learning style. The best ways to install and retain information were also discussed with Biology Gifted Student. The BGS stated that the best ways to retain and stabilize the information were, paraphrasing the information, writing, repetition, drawing and explaining to others. From these results, the researcher presented a set of recommendations and proposals including encouraging teachers of gifted students to benefit from the results of this study.